For Sri Lankan families raising children abroad, one of the quietest anxieties of migration is language loss. A grandmother in Colombo and a grandchild in Toronto can end up separated by more than distance, and by the time the child is ten, they may struggle to hold a conversation in Sinhala at all.
What started out in 2020, as “Sri Lanka’s one and only online children’s storybook library”, Wooks has now transitioned into an online platform that teaches Sri Lankan diaspora how to speak, read and write in Sinhala, and stay connected to their cultural and linguistic roots in Sri Lanka.
The brainchild of attorney-at-law and digital entrepreneur Boopathi Kahathuduwa, Wooks was created partly in response to the lack of easily accessible digital children’s reading material in Sri Lanka, as well as a need for online reading and learning material for young Sri Lankan children and school students during the COVID-era.
It offered children below the age of ten a range of interactive English, Sinhala and Tamil story books, coloring books, activity books, and more, with many of the storybooks written by Sri Lankan authors or inspired by local folklore.
Now operating as “the world’s largest online Sinhala school for children,” Wooks Sinhala School focuses on teaching scattered Sri Lankan diaspora kids their native language, through live, small-group classes over Zoom, with kids from around 13 countries such as Canada, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, Qatar, UAE and the Maldives, participating in online lessons.
Wooks structures its offering around a simple insight: Not every diaspora child is starting from the same place. Some grew up hearing Sinhala at home but never learned to read or write it. Others have had almost no exposure to the language at all beyond a handful of words picked up from parents or relatives. Rather than force every student into one curriculum, Wooks splits its offering into two distinct tracks.
The Spoken Sinhala Course is built for children with little or no existing Sinhala. Classes are conducted entirely in English, and the course deliberately skips the script altogether, focusing purely on building real, everyday conversational ability.
The Sinhala Writing Course targets the opposite end of the spectrum: Children who can already speak Sinhala but have never learned to read or write it. This track teaches the core alphabet in a simplified form, notably omitting the “pillam” diacritical marks that typically add complexity for young learners, to keep literacy achievable within a manageable timeframe.
Both courses share the same operational model: Live online sessions delivered in small classes of around five students, for children aged 5 to 15, with all learning materials supplied by Wooks at no extra cost. Enrollment is positioned as continuously open rather than tied to rigid academic terms, and prospective families are invited to sit in on a free, no-commitment “Open Day” class before committing.
What stands out about Wooks operationally is how little of its infrastructure runs through conventional e-commerce machinery. There is no visible online checkout, no published pricing, and no self-service booking calendar. Instead, every call to action on the website (“Enquire,” “Register Now,” “Book Your Free Spot”) funnels the visitor toward a WhatsApp conversation.
This is a deliberate, relationship-first sales model: A human being, presumably an admissions coordinator or the founder, walks each family through course selection, scheduling, and enrollment directly. For a business serving a trust-sensitive product, such as parents handing over their children’s cultural education to strangers online, this high-touch approach likely does more to build confidence than a polished self-serve funnel would.
Content marketing is similarly modest but targeted. The company maintains a YouTube channel featuring short lesson-snippet clips filmed by its own teachers; not full lessons, but samples designed to demonstrate teaching style and build trust before a parent commits to contact through WhatsApp. The live instruction itself happens entirely on Zoom, kept deliberately separate from the public-facing YouTube content.
Wooks lists seven named teachers on its site, and their combined credentials reveal something about how the company thinks about its product. Rather than assembling a faculty of Sinhala-language linguists or classroom veterans from Sri Lanka’s formal education system, Wooks has leaned toward educators trained in early childhood development, Montessori methodology, child psychology, and English-language teaching certifications like CELTA and TKT. Degrees and diplomas come from a mix of institutions: Lincoln University in Malaysia, the Open University, the University of Sri Jayawardenapura, and various diploma-granting training centers in Sri Lanka.
This staffing pattern makes sense given the audience of young children, many of whom have limited attention spans and complicated relationships with a “heritage language” they may feel self-conscious about. Hiring for early-childhood pedagogy over academic linguistics suggests Wooks is optimising for engagement and retention in the classroom, not just linguistic rigor.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of the Wooks brand is that the language used throughout the platform, leans far more heavily on cultural identity and belonging than on academic outcomes. Phrases like “it’s about staying connected to who you are” and promises that children will “always know where they come from” are given far more significance than any claims about vocabulary size, literacy benchmarks, or exam preparation.
This is a meaningful strategic choice, given that Wooks isn’t really selling a language course. It’s selling reassurance to migrant parents who worry their children are drifting from their roots. The curriculum is the mechanism, while cultural continuity is the product. That framing likely explains both the emphasis on small class sizes and community-building. For example, the platform also hosts Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations involving students from across the world, and the choice of teachers trained in nurturing, developmentally sensitive pedagogy rather than strict language instruction.
Wooks occupies a narrow but emotionally resonant niche: Sri Lankan families abroad who want their children to retain a living connection to Sinhala without enrolling in a heavier, more academic language programme. It competes less with formal language schools and more with informal, ad hoc efforts, such as a parent teaching at home, occasional trips back to Sri Lanka, or scattered YouTube tutorials, by offering structure, community, and qualified instructors in a format built for busy, geographically dispersed families.
Wooks is currently a boutique, community-driven operation driven largely by its WhatsApp-first, relationship-heavy model with a student base of 400-plus children across 13 countries, with the great deal of potential to grow further.
About the Founder
Boopathi Kahathuduwa is the Founder/CEO of Wooks and is a lawyer by profession. He has appeared as counsel in Sri Lankan courts, including the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, with professional experience across constitutional law, public law, and commercial law.
As a CIMA-qualified Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, he focuses on the interaction between legal frameworks, governance, and decision-making within both public institutions and private enterprises. He regularly engages with issues relating to state accountability, administrative fairness, regulatory compliance, and the impact of public policy on economic, business, and social outcomes.